Past board members

Multiple award-winning anchor Angie Lau moves from business journalism to join the Li Ka Shing Foundation and his team of investors and philanthropists making a real positive change in the world by investing in disruptive technologies. Most recently one of Bloomberg TV’s key anchors globally, this internationally experienced journalist was one of the senior editorial voices in the region, heading up Bloomberg’s flagship morning programming for years. An accomplished keynote speaker, Angie gave an inspiring TEDx Talk called “I am Not Supposed to be Here” about the power of finding one’s voice.

During Angie’s tenure as President of the AAJA Asia Chapter, AAJA Asia won Chapter of the Year.

President and National Board Representative Ramy Inocencio (Hong Kong) (2013-2015) is host/senior producer of Wall Street Journal’s “Digits” global tech show. Previously, he was CNN International’s Asia Business Analyst based in Hong Kong. Prior to CNNi, Ramy worked at CNN domestic in New York reporting from the NASDAQ in Times Square. He’s also served as a digital news anchor at CBS News in the Big Apple, an anchor/reporter at Channel NewsAsia in Singapore, a host for China Central Television International in Beijing and a former Peace Corps China volunteer. Ramy counts himself as half-Chinese, half-Filipino and all-American. He was graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, did a year-long Asia-Pacific Leadership Fellowship at the East-West Center in Honolulu, speaks Mandarin Chinese and will inevitably get you to go to karaoke with him. Find Ramy on Twitter @RamyInocencio.

President Ken Moritsugu (2006-2013) is the Tokyo bureau chief for The Associated Press. Previously he was the Asia enterprise editor for the AP based in Bangkok. He has also been a freelancer in India, a Washington correspondent for Knight Ridder and a reporter at Newsday, the St. Petersburg Times and The Japan Times. He was vice president for print of AAJA in 2013 and is a past president of the New York chapter. Find Ken on Twitter @kmorit.

Regional Vice President, Beijing, Allen T. Cheng ( -2012) is the Asia bureau chief of Institutional Investor, a New York-based financial media company that specializes in analyzing the global financial services industry and is a subsidiary of London-listed Euromoney Institutional Investor. He also is managing director of II Magazine Group in Asia and editor-in-chief of IIChina.com, Institutional Investor’s new online Chinese language service that caters to Chinese investors globally. Cheng has more than 24 years of journalism experience covering business, finance and politics in the U.S. and Asia. Prior to joining Institutional Investor, he was Bloomberg News’ China political correspondent based in Beijing. Over the course of his career, he has worked for several Fortune 500 media companies, including Gannett Co., publisher of USA Today, and Time Warner Inc. He is the co-author of a major magazine package on global sovereign wealth funds, which won first place for magazine investigative journalism in the 2009 U.S. Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Awards. A bilingual writer, Cheng also won the 2001 Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award in magazine journalism’s Chinese category for “Rising Phoenix,” a feature story that appeared in Reader’s Digest’s global Chinese edition on the rise of China. Cheng holds a B.A. and M.A. in mass communications from Washington State University and was a fellow at the Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Cheng co-founded AAJA-Asia in 1997 and has been a member of AAJA since 1985. He was a founding member of the Seattle chapter in 1985 and was president of the Portland, Oregon, chapter from 1990-1992.

Treasurer, Tokyo Vice President Yuriko Nagano (2012) and Board Member (2014) and Co-President (2015) is a Tokyo-based American freelance reporter covering anything from business and technology, politics to breaking news. She reports for various trade publications and her coverage has included compliance and regulatory issues, the pharmaceutical industry and logistics. She writes for the Los Angeles Times, the New Scientist and the Christian Science Monitor. Her stories have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek Japan. Her radio stories have been broadcasted on Public Radio International, the Voice of America and KQED-FM San Francisco. She holds a masters degree from U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Regional Vice President, Tokyo, Mayu Yoshida (Tokyo) (2017)

is a Tokyo-based business news caster / reporter for NHK World’s flagship program Newsline. (Japan’s public broadcaster) She mainly covers financial beats in the Asia Pacific region – from stocks markets to central bank decisions – and reports live from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. She also presented an in-depth report on Japan’s nuclear power policy. Before switching to broadcast news, Mayu was a staff reporter at Kyodo News Agency’s English news section where she reported on a variety of topics, such as the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and World Bank-IMF meeting. Her stories and comments were carried by Japan Times, MarketWatch, ABS-CBN etc. A graduate of Keio University Faculty of Policy Management, BA. Follow her on Twitter @mayuyoshidanews and via her LinkedIn profile

Regional Vice President, mainland China, Ching-Ching Ni (Shantou, China) is associate dean and professor at Shantou University’s Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communication in Guangdong, China. Before moving into academia, she served for about a decade as Shanghai Bureau Chief and Beijing Correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. She graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and completed a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.

National Board Representative Chi-Chi Zhang (2012) is a former associate producer for CNN. She has previously worked in Asia for Time and the Associated Press, including stints in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. She has covered the 2008 Summer Olympics, earthquakes, environmental issues, migrants and human rights issues. Zhang was born in Jiangxi, China, and raised in Utah. She majored in journalism in university and worked as a reporter at The Salt Lake Tribune and The Denver Post.

Regional Vice President, Seoul, Sean Lim (Seoul) anchors the prime time news program for Arirang News in Seoul, covering both domestic and international stories including Kim Jong-il’s death, the G20 Seoul Summit, Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics bid and Jeju Island’s New7Wonders of Nature campaign. Sean graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in International Relations and M.A. in Sociology where he received the Stanford Asian American Community Building Award.

Regional Vice President, Hong Kong, Wendy Tang (Hong Kong) was the digital editor at Asia Society Hong Kong Center. Prior to freelancing, she worked at CNNHong Kong as a digital media producer and CNN’s worldwide headquarters in Atlanta as an associate producer. She got her first journalism job through AAJA in New York as a news assistant with NY1 News. She has been an active AAJA member since 2006. She graduated from New York University and is a Hong Kong native. You can follow her on Twitter: @wwtang, add her to your Google+ circle and check out her website.

Regional Vice President, Seoul, Hannah Bae (Seoul)(2011-2013) formerly worked in public affairs for the U.S. State Department in Seoul. A native of Washington, D.C., she arrived in Korea in 2007 as a Princeton-in-Asia journalism fellow at the JoongAng Daily, the International Herald Tribune’s Korean news partner. During her time in Asia, she’s contributed to media organizations ranging from the AP, Yonhap News, CNNGo, IDG Connect and The Miele Guide to Asian restaurants. Previously, she was a journalism initiatives intern at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami, Florida. Find Hannah on Twitter @hanbae.

Board Member Lauren Hardie (Seoul)(2014) is a host, news anchor and copy editor at KBS World Radio. She also serves as the AAJA-Asia membership chairperson, helping to engage new members and assisting with membership relations. She holds a BFA in theatre from Florida International University and earned her MA in TV broadcast journalism at University of Miami, where she first joined AAJA. She worked behind the scenes as a floor director, videographer, and content manager before becoming a reporter at KTTC in Rochester, MN. She also had a short stint producing an entertainment TV program in her hometown, Kingston, Jamaica. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @warlaur.

Board Member Asha Phillips (Ho Chi Minh City) (2013-2014) is the Asia Editor for Storyful social media newswire and Social Media & Communications Director for Dragon Industries Asia. Asha started out in broadcast journalism and has worked at ABC Australia, CNN and other global broadcast news networks as reporter and Executive Producer. She’s a highly skilled journalist with strong social media and broadcast skills and has published work across a variety of platforms including TV, radio, online, print and variety of formats such as blogs, news reports, produced segments. More recently, Asha has focused on social media as a newsgathering source. Her role at Storyful news wire sees her mining social media for newsworthy User-Generated Content, which she then verifies and delivers to newsrooms in real-time. She regularly speaks at industry events and conducts lectures and training for students, marketing & communications specialists and executive management on social media. Follow Asha, @ashaphillips. (More)

Board Member Youkyung Lee (Seoul) is a technology and business writer for the Associated Press based in Seoul, South Korea. Her usual beat covers the consumer and mobile electronics industry and South Korea’s family-controlled big business groups known as chaebol, however Lee has also written breaking news and feature stories on the deadly ferry disaster in 2014, cyber-attacks on governments and businesses, South Korean teenage Internet users and a whistle-blower who exposed the fraud of South Korean cloning specialist. Previously, she was a staff reporter at Yonhap News Agency covering technology and South Korea’s central bank for three years. Before that, she contributed stories for the Los Angeles Times and CFR.org. An Asian Freeman Scholar, Lee graduated from Wesleyan University with a Bachelor of Arts in English and French Studies.

Board Member Arjun Giri (Nepal) has been a journalist in Nepal for the last 13 years, with experience in news and media management while working in print and electronic media. Previously he was a station-manager/ editor in chief in Radio Tulsipur, Nepal and Secretary of Association of community Radio Broadcaster, Nepal (ACORAB), consular of Federation of Nepali journalist Association ( FNJ ) and member of Global Editor Network(GEN). Arjun holds a master’s degree in mass communications and journalism and a bachelor’s in political science from Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepal.

Board Member June Chang (Seoul) is a news anchor for KBS World. She got her first break in media by working at MTV in New York City. After attending graduate school in Seoul, she returned to the U.S. to make documentaries for KBS on a variety of current events issues throughout the Americas. Since moving to Seoul in 2006, she has lectured at Yonsei University, anchored the news on various domestic television and radio networks, and appeared on international media outlets as a guest analyst on Korean issues. She is currently spearheading a U.S. Embassy sponsored project entitled “Not Forgotten: Korean War Oral Histories.” She received her B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University and her M.A. in International Security and Foreign Policy from Yonsei University.

Board Member Eldes Tran (Hong Kong) is a copy editor at the International New York Times. Previously, she was an online news producer at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She has also worked as a copy editor at the Los Angeles Times, from 2006 to 2010. Before that she was at Newsday in New York, where she first joined AAJA. Eldes is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism & Media Studies Centre. She is also a part-time lecturer at Hong Kong Shue Yan University, where she helps journalism students refine their news writing. Find her on Twitter @eldestran.

Board Member Pradeep Kaphle (Nepal) is the news chief for Damauli FM 94.2 MHz in Nepal. He is also a reporter for Radio Nepal and president of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists chapter in Tanahun district. He previously worked for Gorkhaptatra National Daily, Rajdhani National Daily and Nepal Samacharpatra Daily. He is also chairman of the Damauli UNESCO Club and president of the WASH Journalists Forum in Nepal.

Board Member Amy Wu (Hong Kong) (2011-2013) is an American-born Chinese educator and journalist who was based in Hong Kong. She has been a member of AAJA since 1993 as an 18-year-old freshman at NYU in New York, and was one of the early college representatives for that chapter. Since then she has been an active member of AAJA’s New York chapter, and has attended national conventions and worked on the student-run convention newspapers along with the UNITY conferences in Atlanta and Seattle. She is a 2006 graduate of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program. In 2010, Wu relocated to Hong Kong for work where she became re-involved in the AAJA-Asia chapter. As the development manager for The University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Center, she was involved in working closely with AAJA-Asia’s leadership in launching the AAJA-JMSC’s first New Media Conference last June. The event was a success with more than 100 attendees, and received much positive feedback from attendees and the attention of AAJA National’s office. She has spent 14 years working as a reporter at newspapers, magazines and websites. In 2009, she started working in higher education. She has played pivotal roles in the areas of marketing, communications, development, social media, and events planning for institutions including the New York Institute of Technology and The University of Hong Kong’s JMSC. She was formerly a full-time journalism lecturer at Hong Kong’s Shue Yan University, which has a well-regarded undergraduate journalism program. Wu, a native New Yorker, majored in history at NYU and earned her masters’ degree in journalism from Columbia University. She won best journalist award from the Organization of Chinese American (OCA) in 1993.

Board Member (South Asia Liaison) Roy Wadia (2011-2012) is an international media and communications consultant serving as executive director of Heroes Project, a Bombay-based HIV/AIDS communications and advocacy NGO under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He was previously director of communications at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. Before that, he worked in Beijing as a communications/advocacy officer for the World Health Organization, handling issues such as SARS, pandemic preparedness and HIV/AIDS. From 1989 to 2002, Wadia was at CNN where, as executive producer, he helped launch much of CNN’s Asia-Pacific news programming, as well as CNN’s TV/Web convergence process at the network’s first-ever director of integration. He was born and raised in Bombay.

Secretary Ling Woo Liu (2009-2011) is director of the Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education in San Francisco. Previously, she was a writer-reporter for Time magazine in Hong Kong. She also directed a documentary film, “Officer Tsukamoto,” about the unsolved murder of a Japanese-American police officer in 1970. She worked in television in San Francisco and Beijing for several years, and holds graduate degrees in Journalism and Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

National Board Representative Tomoko A. Hosaka ( -2011) is a former reporter at The Associated Press in Tokyo, where she covers mainly business and the economy. She has also worked as an editor at Dow Jones Newswires in Tokyo and as a political reporter for The Oregonian in Portland, where she served as AAJA chapter treasurer for two years. She is a 1999 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (Go Cats!) and received an M.A. in international relations from Waseda University in Tokyo.

National Board Representative Blessing Waung (Hong Kong) is the Editor-in-Chief for the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, where she manages the chamber’s monthly business journal as well as four other publications. Previously, she has contributed to Forbes and Bloomberg in their Hong Kong and Shanghai bureaus. In a previous life, she explored Asia as the travel editor and social media manager at Time Out Shanghai. She graduated from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where she was a recipient of the university’s full-tuition merit-based Trustee Scholarship. She has been involved with AAJA since her senior year of high school. You can find her on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Secretary Jason L. Gatewood (Tokyo) is currently a journalist & media producer for Next Media Animation/TomoNews. He has spent almost 15 years living in Japan on and off, while working in both academia and media. He taught Media Studies at Rikkyo University and High School in Tokyo, Japan, co-founded an English language magazine for Nagoya/Central Japan, and contributed to various media outlets like Reuters and CNN at their Japanese bureaus. In addition, he worked for Comcast, and CBS Outdoor as an advertising producer in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Webster University with a B.A. in Media Communications and Japanese. You can follow him on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and his website, jlgatewood.com.